Comments on: Dan Savage: It Gets Betterhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661
News, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoricTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:56:36 +0000hourly1By: Norcalbenhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79624
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:14:31 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79624What has been said so far is almost all true and very moving. What isn’t quite correct is that it never gets easier, we just learn to deal with it, and it never goes away, it just becomes less overt. Let’s face it, in most of American society, when you leave the room you’re just another queer.
]]>By: customartisthttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79609
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:23:22 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79609These messages aren’t the words of his Classmates – Oh No! They are the hate filled messages of the PARENTS of thiose classmates only being parroted by those classmates. These are the real dregs of society.
]]>By: Jason Dhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79607
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:23:33 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79607Regan, I don’t see why we can’t do both? For those who can be helped, certainly it’s worth it to get them the support they need now — but the sad fact is that some of those kids are out of our reach. Some are so locked-down by the adults in their lives they won’t even see these YouTube videos. I think it’s worth it to find as many ways to support these kids that we can.
]]>By: Regan DuCassehttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79577
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:51:38 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79577What a lovely pair of young women in this video!
It is a laudable effort. True that.

John, I have to agree with you. Children need to have the support and acceptance and comfort NOW.
Waiting for that amorphous, ‘future self’ and phase, is overwhelmingly impossible to imagine for a lot of kids. Some might have the goal of living ‘somewhere else’, but then to do WHAT?

Considering the outright character assassination campaign against Kevin Jennings of GLSEN, and the active attacks against most efforts to form campus GSA’s, even THESE sensible and compassionate responses to bullying, are shouted down and mischaracterize always as ‘the militant homosexual agenda to indoctrinate children.’

So even realizing the dream of integrated kids who accept their gay peers itself is something that has to wait for ‘it gets better.’
Which seems to imply it will all by itself.

The opposition doesn’t have to prove that their wishes and wants improve anything. Even if the results of what they do DIRECTLY causes these hostile environments in the first place.

It’s an intractable problem it seems. Which still leaves a kid responsible for himself and what happens. No matter how isolated he is, he’d have to depend on the internet and these videos for support. Instead of a real live, warm and responsive human being.
This campaign is certainly better than nothing.
But is it enough?
I don’t know.

To Customartist’s point there DOES have to be a centralized method and universal response to this situation in schools. Sometimes though, gay kids have the unique problem of being bullied at HOME as well for being gay.
So the school SHOULD be a refuge to address that possibility.

No religious or anti gay entity should have any say in what schools are required to do with regard to socializing children to prevent these tragedies.
THEY don’t have any better idea or solution, except to continue anti gay rhetoric.
Anything proven to be part of the problem, shouldn’t be allowed ANY voice in the process whatsoever.

It’s not a matter of disqualifying someone’s beliefs, But the moral ethics of how young people deserve to be treated and treat one another. And if a religious group can’t get on board with that, then tough.
People force the government to get involved because they obviously fail at what’s necessary.

And there definitely isn’t anything NECESSARY about anti gay rhetoric.
And everything necessary about the freedom to be educated without fear of harassment and assault.

There is a conflict of interest in this and in any school where harm occurs to a student, and there is no written physical report on record with the school. If Educators, guardians, etc. , any single one, should ever say that they had any knowledge at all of bullyiung, then this opens them up both personally and the School System as well, to liability. Educators Will Never acknowledge observed but unreported bullying, understandably; not approving, just viewing clearly.

There must be a Nationally Centralized method for students and others to report, and to have incidents recorded, and then forwarded affirmatively to schools, so that even casual observers can report cases of bullying, and so that Schools a.) are clearly aware, and b.) cannot deny knowledge of same, THEN Teachers, Police, and Parents would pay attention, perhaps saving lives proactively, instead of pontificating when it’s too late.

]]>By: Johnhttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79569
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:19:55 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79569While this effort is highly laudable, kids have been told for generations that things will change when they grow up. I find it totally shameful that kids have to go through anything like this, at all. Kids are focused on where they are at, right now, not in five or ten years. They shouldn’t have to go through this kind of hurt with the scares it will leave. “Time heals all wounds.” Yes, but it doesn’t remove the scare tissue. We need to prevent the wounds, we must prevent these wounds, in the first place.
]]>By: Craighttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79568
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:15:13 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79568justsearching, I hope they do. Every time some hate group doubles down on the “gays targeting kids” trope, especially Christianist groups, it’s another wedge driven between them and reality. The best way to get most people to stop believing stupid things, is to find way to invite derision of the people who believe stupid things.
]]>By: justsearchinghttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79555
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 05:27:57 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79555It wouldn’t surprise me if some Christian group or news organization (WND for example) took Dan’s video and made a headline “Homosexual adults target 12-year-olds for their agenda.”
]]>By: Roberthttp://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/09/25/26661/comment-page-1#comment-79548
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:47:22 +0000http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/?p=26661#comment-79548There’s a line in a song from a show produced at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco years ago, that comes to my mind here:
“I’m the dream come true/
of the kid I was!”

I’m sitting here in my comfortable home, my husband (legally married husband) is downstairs in his office, and our two sons are playing video games in the family room, waiting for the older boy’s school friend to come over and hang out with them before dinner.

If I’d been told of all this back in high school, it would have seemed science fiction – utterly cool, but implausible in my lifetime. It really amkes me wonder what changes will happen in the lifetime of my kids.